Urd Muyo
by Hawk
Summary: Ranma has been granted a wish and the one who comes to give it to him, is Urd. Can this combination lead anywhere but straight to hell?


Urd Muyo R  
Niklas "Hawk" Jonsson

Summary: Ranma has been granted a wish and the one who comes to give it to him, is Urd. Can this combination lead anywhere but straight to hell?

Disclaimer: Ranma ½, Ah! Megamisama, the characters and whatnot are not mine, though I certainly wish they were! The story is mine though, all mine. This story deals with mature subject matters and violence. If this disturbs you, don't read. But if it does, then why the heck are you watching the show/reading the manga in the first place?

Feedback/Flames: Yes, please. Both of them are equally fun to read, although I must admit that I greatly prefer the first variety. :)  
I can be found on ICQ as 21771860 or through e-mail as iamhawk at yahoo dot com, more stories are available at my nifty lil' site at hawksgalaxy dot com or by clicking on my handle up above if you're reading this on fanfiction dot net.

"speech"  
emphasis/shouts/Kindred Domination/post-hypnotic triggers  
/thoughts/  
/telepathy/  
translation  
+soundeffect/radio/telephone conversation/TV+

Merry XXX-mas!

This was released as one part of my smutty XXX-mas 2006 event, when I made a bunch of shit available at The Fanfiction Forum, ff dot net and fan-fics-r-us. Not all of it was smut, but most of it was at the very least naughty. What and where shit was released, is found here below:

FMP - Unbecoming Conduct Chapter 1 ( TFF for XXX-mas, ff dot net sometime after XXX-mas. )  
HnG - The Scoundrel of Go Chapter 4 ( TFF for XXX-mas, ff dot net sometime after XXX-mas. )  
HP - Black Heir Chapter 2 ( ff dot net, it had already been available at TFF for quite some time. )  
HP - Fall of the Malfoys, Rise of the Blacks Chapter 2 ( ff dot net, it had already been available at TFF for quite some time. )  
HP - Nymph in servitude Chapter 4 ( TFF, PP3+HaT Yahoo Groups, ff dot net sometime after XXX-mas. )  
C Naruto - Master Nin Chapter 4 ( ff dot net, it had already been available at TFF for quite some time. )  
Naruto - Master Nin Chapter 5 ( TFF for XXX-mas, ff dot net sometime after XXX-mas. )  
NGE - A Night with Misato ( fan-fics-r-us for XXX-mas, it had already been available on TFF for quite some time. )  
NGE - A Morning with Misato ( TFF for XXX-mas, fan-fics-r-us sometime after XXX-mas. )  
Ranma ½ - Urd Muyo Chapter 1 ( ff dot net, it had already been available at TFF for quite some time. )  
Vandread - Robinson Tokai Chapter 6 ( TFF for XXX-mas, ff dot net sometime after XXX-mas. )

And a naughty new year!

* * *

Chapter One:

"Hey, sis. Where are you off to?" Urd inquired, lowering her tankard as she looked over at Belldandy with an inquisitive look, seeing that she was preparing herself for departure.

"To grant a wish for a boy in Nerima, Japan." Belldandy serenely replied.

"Nerima? Uh... That's Happosai territory, Bell. Perhaps you'd better let me handle this one." Urd suggested, getting up from her comfortable slouch on the plushy couch and putting the tankard down.

"Happosai territory?" Belldandy inquired with a confused expression. "Some powerful demon?" she asked.

"In a manner of speaking." Urd wryly agreed with a disgusted expression. "He's a mortal. ... Barely. Very nasty, very lecherous and absolutely revolting. He'd eat an innocent like you alive, sis. Or well, at least grope your tits and ass, drool over you and steal your panties. Vile as he might be, I don't think he's ever gotten around to dabbling in cannibalism."

"Oh my!" Belldandy exclaimed with a shocked expression.

"Yes. Which is why I figure you should let me handle this one. I know how to handle the diminutive lecherous fart if he shows up." Urd said and strolled over, taking possession of the assignment order from Belldandy. "Saotome Ranma, huh?" she commented as she hastily browsed through the profile, her eyebrows twitching from time to time. "Wow, this is one fucked up life!" she commented as the phone rang, a LED lighting up to inform them that this was an incoming call to the helpdesk.

She glanced down at the file again and nodded. This was the time when Ranma would be calling. She picked up the receiver before Belldandy could do so.

"Welcome to 555-SEXXX, an operator will be right with you to handle the situation." Urd drawled in a sultry purr, then hung up and waved towards Belldandy. "I'll be right back." she called, then dove into the TV with a graceful leap.

"Take care." Belldandy cheerfully called out at her departing sister.

* * *

+Welcome to 555-SEXXX, an operator will be right with you to handle the situation.+

"Oh no. Not again!" Ranma cursed and hung up the moment he realized that he'd wound up calling some sort of weird phone-sex service instead of the Nekohanten, shaking his head in dismay. "Focus, Ranma. Focus. It's just a phone. The number is written down right here. This time, you'll get it right." he told himself and took several deep breaths, already dreading another visit from Nabiki to inquire into the unusual call.

The last time he'd called a wrong number, he hadn't realized just what it was he'd wound up calling at first, but simply answered some questions and then listened with a bewildered expression as the woman he'd spoken with started describing all sorts of perverted going-ons. So when Nabiki came calling wondering why he'd spent four minutes and thirteen seconds calling a phone-sex service, she hadn't bought his protestations that he'd just called a wrong number.

"Focus..." he told himself and reached for the phone again. /I can do Kata's that boggles the mind of 98 of the worlds finest Martial Artists. A phone is not a problem. Saotome Ranma never looses!/

+Argh! Why couldn't you have a large, convenient, big-screen TV?+ an annoyed voice commented from the direction of the TV, causing Ranma to look over at it. Had someone forgotten to turn it off earlier? He blink-blinked as he spotted an attractive tanned woman on the TV, glaring up, down and to the sides. He blinked again, as she put her hands forward and much to his surprise, through the TV itself into the Tendo living room. +Hooo-oup!+ she called out, then leapt forward and out of the 20 inch TV, landing on her hands and tucking in for a roll across the floor.

She stopped rolling and gracefully got up onto her feet with practised ease, causing Ranma to back off a step and crouch down into a defensive stance. While she didn't exactly hold herself like a fighter, that didn't necessarily mean that she wasn't one.

And if she wasn't, then just maybe he'd gotten himself another weird fiancée or something/Damn you, pops! What have you done now, sold me off to some school of Martial Arts Broadcasting for food or something?/ he cursed mentally.

"Yo!" the woman greeted him with a lazy wave. "So, what'cha want?" she inquired.

"Huh?" Ranma asked in utter bafflement.

"You've been granted a wish, yadda-yadda. I'm Urd, first class Goddess, yadda-yadda. What'cha want? Come on, I 'aint got all day. I'd like to get outta here before the old lecher stumbles across me." she clarified.

"Goddess? Wish?" Ranma repeated, scratching the back of his head.

"Yep and yep. Goddess granting a wish. One. No more, no less. So, what'cha wish for? Come on, get a move on, kid." Urd replied and yawned.

"What's the catch?" Ranma demanded to know.

"Huh? No catch. Just a wish." Urd insisted.

"Why are you here? Did pops sell my soul to the Kami or something?" he continued.

"Not that we're aware of, no." Urd replied, whipping out the file and browsing through it for a few moments. "No, he hasn't sold your soul. Yet. Probably because he hasn't come across anyone who actually wants it."

"I don't have to go out on a date with you or something to get this wish?" Ranma wanted to know.

"You're a little too young for me, kid." Urd replied with a grin. "But if you really insist, I guess it wouldn't harm with a little date." she amended with a shrug. She didn't make a habit out of dating mortals, but he was kinda cute, so she wasn't totally against giving him a chance to show her a good time.

"You aren't my fiancée or anything, are you?" Ranma asked.

"Uh, no. I'm sure I would remember if that were the case." Urd replied with a bemused chuckle.

"We weren't childhood friends and I somehow managed to wrong you before pops dragged me off on a training journey?" Ranma continued.

"Nope. Never met you before in my life." Urd responded.

"Pops hasn't done anything to make you angry?"

"Not to me personally, no. I think he could have treated you better as a child, however." she commented after glancing down at the file again. "He's definitively not cut out to be a parent!"

"You're not on a quest to defeat me, either for vengeance, glory or to win over some prospective spouse of yours that's currently hung up on me?"

"Not really, no." Urd laughed.

"You're just giving me a wish?" Ranma asked.

"Yep."

"No strings attached?"

"Yep."

"You don't want to marry me?"

"No, not really. I don't know you and you don't seem to trust me. That's hardly a good foundation for a solid marriage. Though you can always ask me again if we get to know each other better somewhere down the line."

"You don't want to fight me?"

"Nope."

"You aren't here to punch me in a fit of jealous rage?"

"Nope."

"Wow." Ranma breathed out, astonished at encountering a strange woman who wasn't out to either fight or marry him. That sort of thing didn't happen all that often to him these days.

"So, now when that's all cleared out. ... What'cha want?" Urd asked, but Ranma didn't appear to have heard her. She blinked and walked over to him, waving a hand in front of his face. "Hello? Anyone home?" she asked and gently tapped the top of his head.

"Wow." Ranma repeated again. She was calm, easy-going, non-violent, kind, patient, reasonable and wasn't out to get married to him as soon as possible. "It'd be great if all my fiancées were like you!"

"Sounds like that would be a goo..." Urd started to say, then fell silent as she felt the Ultimate Force going to work through her. "Uh, I don't think that was the actual wish..." Urd commented, before her arms were flung out to the side and she rose from the ground. "WISH GRANTED!" she called out, then emitted a burst of tremendous power that rushed across the planet. Her eyes widened significantly as she felt the changes being made and she gasped as she felt herself being changed too. "Oh, holy shit!" she called out, as she floated down to the floor again.

"Uh... What happened?" Ranma inquired, an impressed and faintly suspicious look on his face.

"You were talking to a goddess who was here to grant you a wish. You didn't think that perhaps it would be a good idea to think before actually opening your mouth?" she asked disgruntedly, shaking her head. "Whomever heard of a wish like that! Whoever thought it would actually get approved! This is fucking incredible!"

"Uh, what wish?" Ranma asked.

"That all your fiancées were like me. The system interpreted your comment as a wish, it was approved by the big boss and the system made it happen." Urd replied. "You got any booze around here?" she asked.

"Unless pops and Mr Tendo have emptied the stock again." Ranma replied with a faint shrug. "Why?"

"Because I think I need a drink before the others show up." Urd replied.

"What others?" Ranma inquired.

"Oh, you'll see soon enough. I can feel them heading this way already." she explained. "Now, where's the booze?"

* * *

"So, this jackass wished that all his fiancées were like you?" Ukyo-Urd asked for clarification, staring at all the Urds around the table.

"Yep." the original Urd replied, taking a swig from the bottle that Shampoo-Urd had just passed along to her.

"I didn't mean to!" Ranma piped up, still fairly shell-shocked from being surrounded by so many Urds. He'd known for quite a while that his father was a moron, but even he had problems believing just how many times the old man had engaged him. He made a quick Urd-count again and once again counted to seventeen, not counting the original Urd.

Some of them he actually recognized, but others he had no recollection of whatsoever. Many of them had never met him before either, but the moment they became goddesses, they'd all realized why, where Ranma was and also that there were others like them. So, all of them had headed towards Ranma, emerging from the TV-set one after another until there were eighteen Urds in the Tendo living room.

None of them were precisely like the original Urd, however. Those he knew well, Akane, Nabiki, Kasumi, Kodachi and Shampoo, he actually recognized even in their new bodies. The hairstyles were the same as before, even if the hair colour wasn't. The clothes were the same as before, albeit adjusted to fit their new bodies. The expressions were the same and the speech patterns were the same. All of them had become tanned stately well-shaped goddesses with platinum-blonde hair however.

"We're goddesses?" Nabiki-Urd asked again, having asked this very same questions three times before.

"Sorta, yeah." Urd repeated, already having explained this several times before.

"On a power-share program, right?" Nabiki-Urd asked for clarification.

"Yep. In order not to violate an old agreement with the demons, there has to be a balance of power between deities and demons. So, instead of creating seventeen new goddesses just as powerful as I was, my power was split equally between all of us." Urd repeated again.

This really sucked! Now she only had a eighteenth of her power and to top it all off, the system had changed things so that she was engaged to the very same asshole who was responsible for it in the first place/'It'd be great if all my fiancées were like you!', indeed./ she thought disgruntedly as she took a swig from the sake and passed the bottle along to Kasumi-Urd who hesitated for a while, before she too drank a tiny amount before passing the bottle along to Elisabeth-Urd, one of the brand new fiancées none of them had known anything about before the unfortunate wish.

Even Elisabeth herself hadn't known about it, until she became a goddess. Her parents had regretted the deal and never told her about it as she grew up. She was even engaged to be married to another man whom she loved, when all of a sudden she became a goddess and aware of her first fiancée.

Ranma had been stunned as heck when Nabiki and Kasumi turned up, but Nabiki had been quick to figure out that the original agreement was for a Tendo daughter to marry a Saotome son and since he hadn't married Akane yet, all three were technically his fiancées and had thus been affected by his careless wish.

And as nobody was more like Urd then Urd, she'd become his fiancée as well.

"Well, what are we going to do about this?" Ukyo-Urd demanded to know. "This sucks even more then before, now there's eighteen of us engaged to Ranchan!"

"Well, I've never met him before in my entire life! Sorry, Ranma. I'm sure you're a nice guy and all, but there's no way that I'm going to marry you. I already have a fiancée." Elisabeth-Urd announced.

"You're breaking the engagement?" Ranma asked with an astonished expression, then whooped out loud. "Yeah! Awesome!"

"You don't have to be THAT happy about it." Elisabeth-Urd grumbled.

"I'm sorry, but I'm just to happy. This has never happened to me before. I've wished for it, but it's never happened." Ranma replied.

"So, it's okay to break the engagement?" Elisabeth-Urd asked.

"More then okay. I'm not going to force anybody to stay engaged to me. The engagement is off." Ranma nearly instantly agreed.

+Poof+

An agreement which caused Elisabeth-Urd to go up in smoke, turning her back to plain old Baker Elisabeth and then teleporting her back to her apartment in Liverpool, England. The other Urds shuddered, as they felt their power levels increase somewhat as there were now only seventeen of them.

"Way neat!" Ranma cheered. "So, anyone else who want out of this?" he eagerly inquired.

"Can't. I'm honour-bound to marry you." Lun Fa Li-Urd replied.

"Not really. Gods and Goddesses aren't bound by mortal agreements made prior to their ascension unless we choose to acknowledge them." Urd replied with a bored yawn.

"You mean? ... ... I don't have to marry this moron? I can finally confess to... Oh, our engagement is off too!" Lun Fa Li-Urd exclaimed enthusiastically.

"Great! Have an awesome life!" Ranma agreed and Lun Fa Li-Urd hastily became Lun Fa Li, then vanished from the Tendo living room, causing another round of shivers.

This continued for a while, much to the great happiness of one Saotome Ranma, who was humming 'Another one bites the dust' and toasting for every broken engagement with Sake straight from the bottle.

"Are you sure that this actually works? I mean, once the engagement is broken, they're not Goddesses any longer?" Nabiki-Urd commented after a while.

"They're breaking up when they're still Goddesses, aren't they? So what if they become mortal again right afterwards? The engagement have already been broken at that point." Urd replied lazily, lying down on the floor and watching TV, glancing over at the proceedings from time to time.

Once it was over, they were down to seven Urds and Ranma was past the realm of 'slightly tipsy' and well on his way to 'roaring drunk'. He'd toasted to the broken engagements with a tea cup that he filled with Sake. He looked around the room and blink-blinked at the remaining Urds.

"Kasumi, Nabiki, Akane, Kodachi, Shampoo, Ukyo and... And..." he counted off, looking around the room before staring at the final Urd with a bewildered expression. "Uh, 'cuse me. Which one are you again? I forgot."

"I'm the real deal." the real Urd replied, turning away from the TV. "Oh, there's still some left?"

"He might be a jackass, but he's still my jackass." Ukyo-Urd spoke up.

"I'm a fucking goddess! There's no way I'm giving this up just yet. I can always do it later." Nabiki-Urd replied. /Like after I've created a stash of gold bullions in my room./ she thought, rubbing her hands together.

"Shampoo no give up Airen." Shampoo-Urd announced, then blinked as an idea came to her. She hastily turned to Akane and implemented the plan she'd just cooked up on the spot. "How about Violent Kitchen Destroyer, Akane want marry Ranma?" she asked.

"What?! That pervert? No way!" Akane-Urd automatically responded, a statement to which the drunk Ranma responded the same way as he had to all the other broken engagements.

"Great! Have an awesome life!" Ranma said and downed another cup of sake half-way, before he spat out the contents of it, coughing violently as Akane-Urd became Akane again, staring at Shampoo-Urd with an astonished expression.

"Ha! Violent Kitchen Destroyer no longer engaged to Airen!" Shampoo-Urd cheered, as Akane turned to stare at Ranma, who stared right back at her.

"Y-y-you tricked me!" Akane suddenly bellowed, turning to face Shampoo-Urd. "You Chinese bimbo whore! You tricked me!"

"Shampoo no trick. Merely ask if Akane want marry Ranma. Akane reply, say no. What trick there?" Shampoo-Urd inquired with a reasonable semblance of an innocent expression. "Akane say thing she no mean? Akane want marry Ranma?"

"Of course not! Who'd want to marry this..." Akane started to protest, before trailing off.

"See? Akane no want marry Ranma. Engagement now broken. Problem solved." Shampoo declared with obvious satisfaction.

"Shampoo does have a point, Akane." Kodachi-Urd spoke up, the first thing anyone had heard her say since she showed up, other then 'thanks' whenever a bottle of sake was passed along to her. "She just asked you a question. You gave your answer. If that wasn't the answer you wanted to give, then it's a shame, but it doesn't matter. You're no longer engaged to Ranma. You brought this one upon yourself."

"Hey! That sounded reasonably sane. What's wrong with you?" Ukyo-Urd asked.

"You've been turned into a goddess and are surprised that a little bit of mental illness has been cured? It would have been a very bad idea to let an insane goddess run free." Urd commented, neglecting to mention that there were enough of those around already. Just because one was a deity, didn't necessarily mean that one was playing with a full deck of cards.

"But..." Akane started to say. "But... ... ARGH!" she exclaimed, turning to face Ranma. "This is all your fault!" she spat out at him, then spun around and rushed towards her room, not wanting anyone to see the tears she could feel starting to emerge.

"Oh my." Kasumi-Urd commented, before she stood up and started to follow her youngest sister.

"You want to break off the engagement though, right Kasmi?" Ranma slurred before she could leave.

"Eh. I... I'll get back to you on that, Ranma." Kasumi-Urd said, before she trotted off after Akane. She had a lot to think about before making such an important decision, but now was not the time for that. It was more important to see if Akane was all right.

"I for one am still undecided." Kodachi-Urd responded serenely. "Urd-sama, if I were to break off the engagement, would I go back to my old self?" she respectfully asked the original goddess.

"Yep." Urd replied unconcernedly. "How co... Oh, now I remember." she added as she recalled the weird Kodachi-related incidents in Ranma's file. "Yes, I'm afraid so. If the engagement is broken, you will return to your former self." she finished apologetically.

"I see. Thank you, Urd-sama." Kodachi replied and sighed. "While I no longer feel such a burning desire to marry Ranma, I certainly wouldn't want to go back to what I once was. I will have to give this matter some serious and extended consideration."

"Howz'about you then, Urd?" Ranma slurred. "Here's to broken engagements?" he asked hopefully, raising his cup of sake in her direction.

"Hold on to your horses there, loverboy." Urd replied. "I'm still undecided on that little issue."

"Whuh?" Ranma questioned.

"You have two women who definitively want to stay engaged to you, three who are considering it and one who really seems to regret breaking off her engagement to you. From what I've read about you, you seem like a nice guy. You're a little young, which is a problem, but you'll grow out of it and it isn't like I can't afford to wait a few years for you to mature a bit." Urd explained. "I think I'll stick around a bit longer and see for myself just what's so special about you."

"B-but... I already have like... Uh... Eh... Five fiancées!" Ranma protested after a moment to think about it.

"It's still a marked improvement over the seventeen you had before." Urd laughed. "Don't worry about it. If it doesn't work out between us, I'll break the engagement. And if it does work out, no fear there either. You can still marry the others." she added dismissively.

"Huh?" was all Ranma could get out in response to that.

"If you marry one of your current fiancées, you're marrying into heaven, kiddo. We've never bothered outlawing bigamy. One wife, six wives. One husband, eight husbands. Three husbands, two wives. No matter. As long as everyone involved agrees to it, there's nothing expressively forbidding it." Urd explained.

"Amazons no outlaw multiple-partner-marriage either. Shampoo can live with." Shampoo announced, glancing speculatively at the other females in the room. While the notion wasn't as odd to her as to some of the others, she still wasn't all that keen on the idea. But like she had said, if it meant that she could finally get married to Ranma, she could live with it.

"You perverts!" Ukyo protested.

"You might be fine with it, but what about me? Does anyone care about what I think? Not that anyone ever has before, but it'd be damn nice if it could start now." Ranma groused, the surprising announcement having sobered him up some, even if he was still rather woozy.

"Unless everybody agrees, no deal." Urd replied. "If you marry one of your current fiancées, but refuse to let the others join the marriage, the other engagements are broken. It's if you go out and pick some other, normal human girl, to marry, that things get complicated. You see, we'd all still be deities unless the engagements are broken before then. And deals made with heaven have to be in breach of contract or mutually broken, in order to be dissolved. We don't have a divine contract, so it has to be mutual. That was why the others didn't return to normal until both parties had agreed to break the engagements. So even if you were to marry some normal girl, the engagements to us would still stand. The lawyers up in heaven would have a field day with that situation."

"There are lawyers in heaven?" Ukyo-Urd asked incredulously.

"Not many, but we do get one or two from time to time. And you wouldn't believe how nit-picky Lady Justice, Athena and some of the others can be whenever some legal issue crops up." Urd replied with a faint shudder. The trial after she'd 'borrowed' Sleipner had been hell. Some of those nit-pickers needed to get drunk, get laid and get a life, not necessarily in that order.

"Anyways, as long as you stick with one or more of us or finds another goddess to marry, no problem. If it's a divine marriage, you or your chosen wife or wives can refuse to let the rest join in and the engagements will be broken according to heavenly law, no problem. Earth doesn't have those laws, however. So if you should get engaged to and decide to marry some human girl, some of us will still be engaged to you, I guess. Not myself, because I'll bow out at that point, but..." Urd explained, then finished by looking at Shampoo and questioningly at Ukyo.

"Shampoo never give up!" Shampoo confirmed. Ukyo seemed hesitant and finally just shrugged. If that situation ever came around, she would have to see then what she'd do about it. She certainly didn't want to be stuck in a loveless marriage or a never-ending engagement, but if the engagement was broken...

She was a deity now, she could choose not to acknowledge the engagement and end it all now. Getting back on the family register as a female could be tougher. And her father probably wouldn't settle for just keeping her registered as a boy, he could very well strike her all-together from it, throwing her out of the Clan and family.

For now, she'd just wait and see. She was still fully confident that Ranma would throw all others aside and marry her. And now when she was a goddess, he had a perfect way to get out of all those other pesky engagements. All he had to do, was to marry her! Once he'd sobered up and she'd explained this to him, she had no doubt that he'd see reason instantly and that they'd be married before the day was over.

"I am still undecided, though returning to my former condition seems like a more and more repulsive notion the more I think about it. There is a significant chance that I would hang on to the engagement for as long as possible." Kodachi commented.

"Well, there you have it." Urd said and suddenly tensed up. "Oh, no. What is that freak doing here?" she groaned and shook her head.

"Hotcha!" Happosai exclaimed six point four seconds later after having jumped over the wall around the compound and rushed into the house, seeing all the gorgeous women loitering around. He dropped the sack of undies he was lugging around and launched himself through the air at the nearest set of female breasts, which happened to belong to Nabiki-Urd who reacted pretty much instinctively, using knowledge she didn't even know she possessed.

"Spirits of Decay and Entropy, hear my call. Answer these summons and..." she started to chant, causing Happosai to tense up from his perch and jump back, his eyes widening as they swivelled across the room, taking in more information then just the fact that there were a lot of glomp-worthy breasts around.

"Goddesses!" he exclaimed, paled and darted off in such a hurry that he even left his sack of stolen undergarments behind.

"..." Nabiki trailed off, blinking for a few moments until she smirked as she realized what she had just been about to do. "Oh, yeah!" she exclaimed. "Forget money, this is real power! I could have turned his sorry carcass to mulch with nothing but a few incantations!"

"With my full powers, yeah, definitively. At our current levels, maybe." Urd interjected. "I certainly wish now that I'd finished the job when I last came across that old freak."

"You've met him before?" Ukyo-Urd asked.

"You think he's always been that short?" Urd snorted. "He was quite the stately fellow, before he and some other pervert decided to grope me. I let them get off way too easy..." she growled, reaching out and snatching up one of the rice-balls Kasumi-Urd had whipped up when the fiancées had all shown up and Ranma complained about being hungry, as he'd never gotten the Chinese food he'd been about to order from the Nekohanten when Urd showed up.

* * *

"Kasumi?" Ranma called out as he entered the kitchen.

"Oh. Good morning, Ranma." Kasumi replied distractedly, fixing breakfast for the family as usual. Though her white hair and tanned skin certainly wasn't like how things used to be. Neither were the ingredients floating in the air above the stove.

"You wanted to talk to me?" he asked, though he wasn't quite sure why. He'd woken up without the assistance of cold water, being thrown out of his futon or being attacked in some other manner. He'd all of a sudden just opened his eyes, felt the urge to start his morning early and talk to Kasumi. He'd washed off, gotten dressed and then headed towards the kitchen, intending to seek her out. It wasn't until then, that he realized that perhaps he was influenced by something to do just that.

"Yes." Kasumi agreed and finished chopping up a daikon, deftly levitating the result up into the hair until it hovered over the stove, ready to be used.

"How's Akane?" Ranma asked after glancing around and making sure that the two of them were alone and that no snooping Nabiki or meddling fathers were loitering around to hear him showing concern for her.

"Upset." Kasumi sighed. "I know that she doesn't show it all that well, but she really cares for you. The breaking of the engagement was a lot more tangible this time then it has been before." she sadly added. "With the loss of her temporary goddesshood, it probably seemed more... Permanent."

"Yeah. I guess." Ranma responded, unsure of what he really felt about it all. He also really cared for Akane, he too hadn't showed it very well and the breaking of their engagement left him oddly uncertain. Having Kasumi, Nabiki and Urd as fiancées also weirded him out. Granted, when first meeting her, he'd thought Urd was awesome, thus leading to his accidental wish.

He was glad that all those other engagements had been broken, at least now he knew exactly how many and which fiancées he actually had. There were no more. He now also had a perfect way to get out of the rest, if only he could choose one of them to marry, all the other engagements would be off. If only Akane had still been a fiancée, he would have seriously considered a wedding. But now when she wasn't...

He liked Ukyo well enough, but still saw her as more of a buddy then a woman he could see himself married to. Shampoo had her strong points as well and some of the cons of marrying her had vanished with her ascension to deityhood, but what he felt for her wasn't enough for him to want to marry her either. A sane Kodachi was a significant improvement, but he'd hardly known her before and this new one, not at all. Urd was nice enough, but he knew even less of her then Kodachi.

Nabiki, well, he knew her well enough and it didn't seem as if her ascension had changed much. He still cared for her, but was very leery of marrying her. Kasumi, well, he definitively cared for her, very much so, but he hardly knew her and was even more leery of marrying her then Nabiki, but for very different reasons. Ever since a few days after meeting up with the Tendo's, he'd started putting Kasumi on a pedestal. She was without a doubt, the nicest person he'd ever come across and he had thus never even considered the possibility of hooking up with her, as he considered her to be far to good for someone like him.

Six fiancées, none of which he really wanted to marry at the moment. Things could change with time, he guessed. But at the moment, he didn't feel like getting hitched to any of them. He shook his head to clear his mind and instead focused on Kasumi.

"What was it you wanted to talk with me about, Kasumi?" he asked her.

"We're engaged now, Ranma. We should talk about that." she replied and turned around to face him, leaning back against the kitchen sink. "I know that the heavenly laws give us a way out, but I... I can't understand how those other girls could reason like they did. Even if the laws that apply to us now technically make prior mortal agreements null and void, there still was an agreement to begin with. I... I am not like those who could just break the engagement with nary a thought about it. I don't give my word easily, Ranma. When I do, I stick to it."

"But... It wasn't you who gave it." Ranma interjected. "It was our fathers. And besides, you've already rejected me once before." he added.

"The agreement is for a Tendo to marry a Saotome. I didn't reject it, Nabiki and I merely pushed it onto Akane." Kasumi responded. "She is now out of the running. Nabiki and I are still in. If Nabiki decides to stick to it, I can and will bow out. If she does not and breaks the engagement, I will stand by it. The fact that it was father who made the agreement and not me, doesn't matter to me. If it is broken, it still affects family honour. This does matter to me." Kasumi explained.

"Oh." was all Ranma could say to that, feeling his respect for Kasumi go up another few notches.

"I believe Ukyo feels the same, though she has other concerns as well. Even if she now has a way to break off the engagement, she's still registered as a boy until she marries you. That won't change with a broken engagement, heavenly law or not." Kasumi continued. "Shampoo is the same, but she has it even worse. If she doesn't get you to acknowledge the marriage to her, she will be punished by the laws of her village. Perhaps locked in her cursed form, perhaps something worse." she added. "Kodachi now realizes that all she had with you was an insanity-wrought crush, but also realizes that if the engagement is broken, she'll go back to how she was before. I imagine that she probably views death as a better alternative."

"Urd... I don't know what she believes. I spoke with her last night, but never did understand why she's willing to consider this, even though it would be of no consequence to her to break off the engagement. She has no agreement, no punishment or significant loss of mental health to worry about. Perhaps she merely likes you, I do not know." Kasumi revealed and looked down. "Nabiki... Nabiki cares about the family, perhaps as much as I do. But she does not believe in honour as I do, as you do. She can and will break the engagement with nary a thought, unless it in some way benefits her."

"Oh." Ranma said morosely. He'd known about all of this before, but he had never really though about it until just now. Shampoo would be punished if she didn't succeed. Ukyo would be forever stuck as a boy if she didn't succeed, unless she could somehow persuade her father to make things right. Kodachi was actually worse off now then before, now that she knew how bad it was before and had the possibility of returning to her former miserable state hanging over her. Urd.. Well, he didn't know either why she hadn't broken the engagement yet. He had to speak with her about that.

Nabiki... He hadn't needed Kasumi to tell him about Nabiki, he'd known all of that already. And boy did she benefit from this! She'd turned into a goddess for crying out loud! The question was, was that enough of a benefit for her to marry him or not?

Kasumi... He'd been surprised, but not overly so, at her revelations. He shouldn't have been surprised that she valued honour as much as she did, he should have understood that from how she behaved all of the time. She could and would marry him, unless Nabiki did so.

That really pissed him off, why should someone like Kasumi be in danger of having to marry someone like him based on the whims of someone like Nabiki?

"That was what I wanted to talk with you about, before you could go around trying to break off any more engagements." Kasumi explained. "You need to consider just what the consequences of doing so might entail. I just hope none of the other girls will get into trouble for what happened last night. For all we know, breaking off the engagement to you might have been the worst decision of their lives."

"But... What can I do? I don't care what no laws up in heaven say, I can't possibly marry all of you!" Ranma protested vehemently.

"Can you condemn Shampoo to eternal damnation or possibly even death? Or Kodachi to insanity?" Kasumi countered. "I'm not saying that it's a good solution or even the only solution to marry all of your fiancées, but I don't want you to just reject it out of hand either."

"Would you do it if you were in my position? If you had to marry Ryoga, Kuno, Tofu, Mikado, Hiroshi and Daisuke to save them, would you?" Ranma asked.

"I am not you, Ranma and I'm not telling you to do it. I just don't want you to dismiss it before thinking about it." Kasumi replied evasively.

"Six wives? And Akane thought that I was a pervert before..." Ranma muttered and shook his head. "Anything else you wanted to talk about, Kasumi?" he asked.

"Not really. I just wanted you to think things through, before making any rash decisions." Kasumi replied and then giggled. "I know that it must be a new concept for you, but please do try to live by it for a while." she asked him jokingly.

"All right..." Ranma mumbled as he dazedly staggered out of the kitchen, hoping that some fresh air would help him clear his currently very confused mind.

The End! ( For now... )


End file.
